Progress

Ryan came across this picture the other day and it served as a good reminder for us. This was taken the summer of 2015 after he received a grant from the Farmer Veteran Coalition for Featherman Poultry Processing Equipment. We had moved from South Dakota to the farm the year prior and were still (are still!) doing a lot of work to get this farm and land to where we wanted it to be.

Looking back at this picture was a good reminder of how far we have come, since through the day to day rigors of farm life, we tend to see how far we have yet to go. We don’t have any hoop houses fully up as of this picture, no hard fencing out in the pasture. There are no bee hives back in the woods either. We didn’t have any sheep grazing out back or farm cats for that matter. Our garden consisted of about 11 raised beds. We planted some fruit trees out in the growing hay field as the start of our orchard.

We forget so easily how far we have come as we work on building this farm while raising a family, 1 of us working off the farm full time and the other gone working at least 1 weekend a month in another state. We keep telling each other we have come so far when all we can think about is how far we have yet to go.

When all we see is all the failures or projects that have yet to be finished or started that are supposed to be completed this year. We have to remind ourselves that we have had a phenomenal year. Our family has grown and our kids are all happy and healthy. We have 17 lambs this year-we unbelievably had 4 sets of triplets this spring. We raised and processed over 190 meat birds this spring. We were able to get most of the garden and hoop houses planted this year after limited clean up last fall (due to a deployment and new baby). We (mostly Jackie’s dad) put up a new 30-72′ hoop house that is being prepped right now for fall/winter growing. We were able to get much of our garden beds reseeded for the fall so our garden is still nice and green. We started selling to our first restaurant, Holla, in Manitowoc. Did I mention we also have a newborn? And we had the kids in baseball this summer and we were able to take a week off to the Northwoods in July?

We keep working on growing and becoming more productive and more efficient, all while trying to balance our family life and make a living. We love all that the farm offers us and our family and community. We have to keep taking the time to look back at where we started and really take time to enjoy the moment right now. The farm is growing and we are so excited! Our customers have been so supportive and it is so fantastic to continue to see new faces at the farm as well as our steady, regular supporters.

We hope you stick with us because even though we could not be more proud of were we are today-just wait until you see where we are going!

Farming in your service,

Ryan and Jackie Sullivan